Walter Einenkel

Thomas Sibick is accused of ripping off DC Metro Police Officer Michael Fanone’s badge and radio during the melee that left Officer Fanone unconscious. The Buffalo, New York, resident tried to lie his way out of an arrest, after video evidence—including images of Sibick showing off a stolen riot shield after the attack—was shared with the FBI online. Sibick faces up to 15 years in prison for his part in the Jan.

California Rep. Eric Swalwell, like many Democratic officials, has been the target of right-wing media personalities like Tucker Carlson—largely because he is consistently vocal about GOP malfeasance and hypocrisy. On Thursday, Rep. Swalwell posted a voicemail message he received filled with hate, invective, racism, homophobia, and wishes for his torture and death.

It is Friday. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s tour de delusion may be coming to an end, as the disappointing senator might have finally realized she technically does have a job. It is impossible to overstate how essential doing away with the filibuster is to a healthy democracy. There’s a new Postal Service scandal, care of DeJoy. Conservatives may finally begin to worry about climate change as it threatens their wallets.

Tennessee state Sen. Frank Niceley has been around for a while. He’s the kind of special scumbag that supports big government subsidies for guns but opposed his own Republican governor’s deal to expand health care coverage to Tennesseans back in 2015. 

On Wednesday, Tennessee legislators passed a “nearly $900 million spending package aimed at clearing the way for Ford Motor Company’s $5.

If we ranked the many Republicans who supported, and still support, Donald Trump’s attempted coup d’etat by their level of enthusiasm for sedition, Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas is probably at the top of the list. In the days leading up to the Jan.

The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper has made a comedy name for himself for his field pieces, where he interacts with the illogical circus that is MAGA Americana. As far as comedy field pieces go, the MAGA crowd has always been like shooting fish in a barrel as there are so many lost, confused, and outright ridiculous folks to interview at any MAGA or MAGA-related event.

The Biden administration took a step forward in combatting climate change while taking two steps back in humanizing our immigration policies. Tucker Carlson remains a homophobic hack, with jokes that would have embarrassed a stand-up comedian in the 1980s. Texas continues attacking children, this time focusing on trans youth. John Deere workers are going on strike—10,000 strong. And Andrew McCabe gets his retirement back now that Trump is gone.

Arizona Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich must be under a lot of stress. He is considered the Republican Party’s best chance at turning Sen. Mark Kelly’s seat red this coming election. He’s the front-runner for the nomination to run against Sen. Kelly.

A Trump-loving Republican candidate for state legislature in Virginia has some interesting thoughts on climate change. Replace the word “interesting” with “painfully ludicrous” and add some sarcastic quotation marks around “thoughts.” Scott Pio is running for state rep. against incumbent Democratic Del David Reid in Loudoun County’s District 32.

Welcome to Tuesday, everybody! The legislative branch of the government was able to take time away from not getting anything done to lift the debt ceiling, so that’s something. Centrist—or more honestly, conservative—Democrats continue to hide behind their even more cowardly Republican counterparts. Corruption pays in Florida. Everything is bigger in Texas, including the blinding hypocrisy of Texas Gov.

At the start of 2019, Jim Yong Kim “made the surprise announcement” that he would be stepping down at the end of January after six years as the president of the World Bank. Kim was not due to leave until 2022, and that institution’s leadership has always been something the United States—and more specifically the acting president of the United States—gets to choose.

Across the country there has been a Koch-funded Republican caravan of anti-mask and anti-vaccine protests. The levels of disruption and threats to school boards and students getting back to school has varied. Republican operatives have used this as an issue with which they can promote what is left of their long-abandoned platforms of “small government” and “family values.

It is Friday! Republican Senate ogre Mitch McConnell was able to find nine other GOP senators willing to extend the payments for debt they created, at least for another couple of months. Texas continues to do whatever reactionary bigot Gov. Abbott (and his billionaire donor) wants do these days. And young alleged white supremacist murderer Kyle Rittenhouse has a new, grotesque defense.

On Tuesday, former White House press secretary and top Trump aide Stephanie Grisham released her tell-all book, something something something blah blah blah. Early leaks from the book gave a very believable account of the insecurities, the arrogance, the pettiness, and the incompetence that emanated from the Trump administration. Grisham is an unreliable narrator but so is every single person she talks about.

It is Monday! Rise and shine! Progressives have been able to stop the unconscionable lack of action on the part of Sens. Krysten Sinema and Joe Manchin, for now. The Jan. 6, 2021 attempted coup d’etat may not be the GOP’s favorite subject because so many of them are implicated in potentially criminal behavior. Our pandemic threatens to last far longer than it should and nobody wins if it does.

Hello Friday people! This week, like the last week, and the one before that, and the one before that has been filled with the disappointing scent of eau de Manchinema. The consequences of having had four years of an administration hell-bent on raiding the coffers and obliterating the public trust in our democracy are hurdles we must continue to overcome on the march toward progress.

On Friday, Oct. 1, 2021, former President Jimmy Carter turned 97. The oldest living American president spent the day at home. President Joe Biden offered up this salutation: “Happy 97th Birthday to my dear friend, President Jimmy Carter. A humble servant of God. A beacon of light and moral clarity. A leader of extraordinary character, honor, and integrity. @FLOTUS and I send our love to you and Rosalynn on this special day.

It is Friday. Finally, subpoenas were sent out to some of Trump’s closest dirtbags. The conspiracy theorists take another hit as reality once again gets in the way of their made up election story. Florida Republicans are trying to sink Florida in the name of freedom, and the GOP and its most rabid supporters continue promoting the idea that our country should be turned into a dictatorship of billionaires. You know, to stop the other billionaires.

The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper has made a name for himself by going to various MAGA and MAGA-adjacent events to interview the participants and see what their positions are. The humor comes from the fact that most Trumper types think with their guts and not with their heads. This is consistent with their anti-science and anti-reality-based positions on elections, on vaccines, and on masks.

The campaign finances of Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado have been the subject of a lot of speculation. The seemingly corrupt and possibly illegal ways she has used her campaign’s finances to pay for personal items—like $20,000 worth of gasoline and rent. She’s not particularly bright, but neither are most of her colleagues. She’s petty, suspected of being tied up deeply in the Jan.

The big issue facing our country today is whether or not vaccine mandates, or even mask mandates, are American! Do we need a nationalized healthcare system or a robust infrastructure bill, or some kind of regulation on our totalitarian income inequality situation? Nope. Mandates on proven public health measures are still a flashpoint for the policy-free GOP.

Hello, Friday! For many, this past week was one of reflection. For Republicans, that is never an option. While the GOP weeds out the most unhinged members of its caucus, the Biden administration continues its attempts to return us to the 21st century, and the legislative branch of the government has a lot on its plate over the next couple of weeks.

Joe Saboe is a 36-year-old Iraq war veteran. He started Team America by chance. The group has been described as “an impromptu network of veterans and citizen volunteers who came together to execute an ad hoc mission to get American citizens and Afghan allies safely out of Kabul before the American airlift ends.” With around 200 volunteers, Team America is one of many groups trying to coordinate and evacuate Afghan allies.

Disgraced former Republican Speaker of the House and convicted child molester Dennis Hastert has reportedly settled one of his ongoing legal issues surrounding his abuse of teenagers during his time as a wrestling coach at Yorkville High School, Illinois. The Associated Press reports that a “tentative out-of-court settlement” was reached between Hastert and one of the men he abused as a child regarding hush money Hastert had promised to pay back in 2010.

Today, Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021, many of us were surprised and saddened by the news that comedian Norm MacDonald had passed away “after a long and private battle with cancer.” MacDonald reportedly kept his diagnosis quiet from many family and friends, as well. MacDonald was best known as a player on Saturday Night Live, as a frequent talk show guest on Late Night with David Letterman and Conan O’Brien. Norm was 61-year-old.

If you decide to hop in a car from North Carolina’s 11th Congressional district where Republican wanker Rep. Madison Cawthorn does next to nothing and travel across the Tar Heel State to Johnston County, it’ll take you about five hours—give or take 15 minutes with no traffic.

On Friday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis won a victory for bad public health when a three-judge panel in the 1st District Court of Appeals ruled that the governor could continue trying to punish school districts that enacted mask mandates for their schools. The decision overruled 2nd Judicial Circuit Court Judge John C. Cooper’s ruling that the governor’s ban on mask mandates was unconstitutional.

It’s Friday! The Biden administration continues its work of trying to fix the last guy’s mess while moving us into a future where we don’t rely on rich benefactors to get women medical care and dead dinosaurs to power our cars. This week was also a reminder that Jeff Yang always was (and remains) most interested in helping Jeff Yang. In spooky news, another version of Scott Walker walks among us! 

Here is some of what you may have missed.

The 47-year-old deputy mayor of Airmont, NY, is facing 30 state and federal criminal charges. Last week, Brian Downey was arrested on weapons charges after law enforcement found illegal weapons and fake IDs in his home. NPR reports that a raid of Downey’s home turned up “16 assault weapons and 13 silencers,” as well as “a stash of fake federal IDs, including FBI credentials.

Early in August, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Minnesota announced the arrest of 30-year-old Anton “Tony” Lazzaro. Lazzaro is charged with multiple counts of sex trafficking with at least six minor victims. A couple of days later, a 19-year-old Minnesota woman, Gisela Castro Medina, was arrested in Florida and named Lazzaro’s co-defendant in the case.